


Come Away to the Water

by nishta



Category: Homestuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-16
Updated: 2012-04-16
Packaged: 2017-11-03 19:22:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/384974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nishta/pseuds/nishta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The hand falls from your throat, and in your brief moment of lucidity, you look past your demanding bulge, past your infatuation with Sol, past even your crippling, cold-burning hatred, and you smile at Ahab’s Crosshairs, sitting to your right."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Come Away to the Water

The goal had never been to get Sol’s attention. It still isn’t. But you open Trollian anyway, and prepare yourself for the next hour of your life. You tell Sol you’re inebriated, and he believes you, and you may or may not take a bit of pride from that—you’ve got his attention, don’t you—but he seems more complacent tonight, and you’ve never hated him more. He pushes you along, and you can just hear his laughter right next to your ear, the heated breath, and when you imagine reaching over to rip his throat out, your mind’s eye shifts to show you your own head lying adjacent to your body, and you see Sol leaning down to kiss your bleeding mouth—the disgust you feel is immediate and you have no justification for imagining what you did, because of course it’s going straight to your bulge, just like it always does, and you find yourself losing what little grip on reality you thought you had managed. He’s making fun of you, you know it, you can feel it, and your fingers clench over the keyboard as you’re typing, resulting in a nasty slip of your quirk. You fix it with a hasty “ffuck.”

Sol laughs, and you feel it as a fist to your stomach.

You’ve lost it, you know you have, because it was only a matter of time, and now you’re being forced to admit it with Sol’s hand at your throat, and it’s this thought that spurs you forward. You justify what you’re about to do with a warning—you do tell him, you do, you let him know that you’re about to drop them both down into a roiling ocean of unimaginably dumb shit—but he just clears his plans for the rest of the night like a coy motherfucker, and you can see his smile, his canines, as he has the nerve to tell you _he’s prepared_. He’s prepared for this. “Go ahead,” he says. “Roll out with all your dumb shit, I am prepared.” And that’s when you snap, when you feel yourself break clean in two, and suddenly it’s like you’re not even in your body anymore, just watching your broken self type away at your husktop, floating high above with miasma in your blood.

You watch yourself clench your teeth, your fingers, close your eyes; you whisper a quiet, “fuck,” before doing the one thing you swore to yourself you’d never do, you’d _sworn_ , you’d rather go back and fight those damn angels again, you’d rather have Fef reject you again—

“I’m really fuckin’ flushed for you, Sol,” you type, and then you read it aloud, and the words aren’t strange on your tongue at all, because you’ve said it so many times before. You’ve said it before, and meant it, and felt murderous for it, but you’ve never said it in his presence. You’ve never wanted to.

Not so much as you did just now.

He doesn’t say anything, and so you goad it out of him. “Is that what you want to hear?” you ask, scream, punch into the keyboard. “Is that it?” And your nerves combust into anger—a shaky, cold sweat sort of anger, and it leaves you trembling and chilled as it rushes through your veins before settling as a heavy weight on your chest.

And all Sol says is, “Oh.”

Bullshit. He asked for this, he is not leaving it to stand where it does now. So you goad it out of him, and then instantly regret it when you do.

The words seem to erupt from him, with a force that shouldn’t hurt as much as it does when it slaps you across the face, in the stomach—curls and claws around your throat. “First, where the hell do you think you get off being the biggest asshole with gills you could possibly be without literally being a giant asshole? Second, I don’t know how to tell you nicely but i think you’re a massive prick, third are you _shitting_ me right now? Is that the only reason I’ve had to put up with your dumb love letters for the past million weeks—and don’t try to act like it wasn’t you.”

Your entire body stills, your think pan stutters to a halt; for a minute, with his silence, his “oh,”  you’d dared to hope—you’d hoped, and you’d felt the weight lift off of your chest, just for a moment. And where the fuck did that get you.

Look how far you’ve fallen.

You sniffle and scream at yourself to stop crying, that you’re not crying, but oh, you are—the tears slide down your face as you muster up enough of your cold, half-hearted anger to reply to Sol.

“Okay, Sol, hold up just a single fuckin’ minute,” you type, and with each new word you add you can feel the life being sucked out of you. “I didn’t send you any love letters. You’re flatterin’ yourself if you think I’d go that far for a pathetic individual such as yourself. You’re not worth anything.” And you know these words don’t hold any weight, at least not on Sol—you can feel them sitting heavy on your heart, a lump slowly rising in your throat as you struggle not to let loose a sob. “You’re the prick here, you’re a fuckin’ menace to society, keep your goddamn self under control, would you? Where do you get off, huh? Killin’ your matesprit, how’d that work out for you? Don’t pretend you know anythin’ because it’s a wonder you’re still left to be alive—you shoulda been culled a long time ago to save everyone else the trouble of dealin’ with you.”

Shit, what are you even doing, when did you decide fighting back would be a good idea—when the _fuck_ did you decide to open yourself up, completely vulnerable, to every blow you know Sol is about to make?

“Wait, really?” Sol says, and you can just imagine him laughing, his eyes sparking as his anger slowly works its way through his body. “ _I’m_ the menace to society because some wannabe highblood goes on a power trip and fucking don’t even _act_ like you thought I _wanted_ her to die. Just stop.”

You see his words, you hear them in your head, and vaguely, you think you recognize the danger you’re in, but you can’t. You can’t stop now.

“Oh, you’re bein’ awful calm about this, Sol.”

His reply is immediate. “ _I’m_ not the lonely, unstable lunatic who amuses himself by plotting out mass genocide plots I’d never have the balls to carry out.”

Was that directed at you? You feel yourself slowly slipping from your body again; you blink, and you’re only half there, the husktop screen split and blurred, and you find yourself being pulled up by the rapid fire of your thoughts. You look down in disgust as you—that’s you—blindly reply, and by this point, you’re sure you don’t have a single thought in your head that isn’t centered around what you want to do to Sol.

“Is this how you acted with Fef when she turned you down? Because I really don’t blame her. I’m just laughing.”

You’re almost surprised as you watch yourself type what you do next. “Hey Sol,” you say. “I wasn’t kiddin’ when I said I was waitin’ to get my throat ripped out.” Had you mentioned that before? Surely not.

When Sol scoffs—when he tells you he’d never do you the favor—you feel a sickly smile tugging at your mouth. “I’m not talkin’ about you,” you say, glancing at the gun beside you. “I’ve got a date.”

Sol expresses his disbelief, and you feel the cold, stale laughter scratching at the insides of your throat. “They’re sittin’ right next to me, actually,” you say. “Can you believe it?” You can hardly believe it yourself, but in the slow seconds it takes Sol to reply, you find yourself reaching out to stroke two fingers against the barrel.

“No, who. Tell me who, I’ll tell you if they’re a good match or not, eheheh.”

You raise the same hand to grasp at your neck, press a claw against your jugular. “Be riskin’ my precious guts to tell you,” you say, and then an idea strikes you with the blood you draw. “Why don’t you come and find out, Sol, or you can just find me dead in the mornin’ and clean up the mess.”

You can feel the hesitation hang in the air, and you trail the hand still at your neck down over your collarbone, press the heel up against your sternum, and press two fingers against the indent at the base of your neck. The teeth you press against your lower lip draw beads of blood.

“So you’re okay with losing your throat, but not your gut—okay, makes sense. That’s creepy as fuck, stop it. Nobody’s going to kill you.”

Laughter catches in your throat, sounds more like a grunt, a snarl. You pull your lower lip in past your teeth and allow your eyes to flutter as you continue to drag your hand down against your chest. You know you shouldn’t, you really, really shouldn’t, but Sol has already rejected you, and you’ve got nothing else to lose, not really—and so as you bite down on your lip, you finally allow yourself to imagine Sol next to you. Touching you. You imagine him at your ear, at your jaw, at your neck and chest and stomach and, slowly, watch him lower himself in front of you, a tongue flicking out between his lips as he presses a hand against your crotch. Your teeth sink too deep into your lip and you feel blood spark on your tongue, and you pant as Sol shoves two—it’s always two with him—fingers into your mouth, presses down on your tongue, hisses. A groan melts against his claws.

You reply to him in a daze, fingers working open your pants even as shame smothers your heart. “Honestly, it’s a wonder I’m even allowin’ you to touch my blood,” you type, and you’re surprised you managed, because you’re only typing with one hand and it’s shaking so badly you can barely control your fingers. Your other hand is sneaking into your trousers, and when your bulge begins to writhe against and around your fingers, the hand you’ve kept on the keyboard spasms. An idea strike you. “Sol, did you ever wonder—” But you’re back to imagining him castrated before you, this time with his hissing, lisping mouth being assaulted by your bulge and your idea, whatever it was, vanishes with any respect you may have at one point held for yourself. “I got a date,” you say instead, gasping it aloud as your fingers slide across the keys. You can hardly feel them.

Just when you’ve forced three fingers into Sol’s mouth— _fuck_ his twos—his reply shows up on the screen. “Yeah, I—” There’s a pause, a hesitation, and you take the opportunity to shove your pants down around your knees. “I know you did, you just told me.” Another hesitation, and your head is thrown back, spine arched, eyes just barely focused on Sol’s words. “ED, what’s going on?”

You move your hand awake from your bulge and up to your neck, and as you slowly increase the pressure, you imagine it’s Sol, can feel him whispering in your ear, against your gills. “Would you take the credit, Sol?” you ask. “Bet you want that, right?”

But his reply is immediate, and more cutting than it has a right to be. “That’s fucking stupid, if I was going to kill you I would do it right. Who is with you, ED?” And shortly afterwards, almost as an afterthought, uncertain, “Where are you?”

You can’t control the raw laughter that escapes past Sol’s hold, because he has absolutely no right to be concerned, he’s the one fucking _doing_ this to you. The hand falls from your throat, and in your brief moment of lucidity, you look past your demanding bulge, past your infatuation with Sol, past even your crippling, cold-burning hatred, and you smile at Ahab’s Crosshairs, sitting to your right. “I’m fuckin’ laughin’,” you type as your hand makes its slow way back to your arousal. The urgency drains out of you. “Your concern is touchin’—so touchin’ I feel I might even be sick.”

“Remember what I said about having to come over and clean up your mess,” he says, and you recall vaguely that he’d made that threat earlier—you squeeze the base of your bulge lightly, and consider just how much you want Sol to come clean up your _mess_. You move to tell him, trailing two fingers along the side of your squirming bulge, but he has more to say. “You’re a massive fucking idiot. Why did you think getting drunk off your ass would ever be a good idea? Pathetic.” You hear his scoff in your gasp; you’re still teasing at your arousal, and it’s getting difficult to see straight—thinking straight was something you forgot long ago how to do. You may as well be drunk.

You bulge is dripping all over the place; your hand is stick with purple, and you groan as you try to pull your attention back to the screen of your husktop. Imaginary Sol is just so much more pleasing, entertaining. “Ok Sol,” you type, and even seeing his name makes you shiver. “Here’s somethin’ to ponder.” You pause, because your hand is shaking too much in light of the spasms starting to work their way through your body. _God_ —“I want you.” You say it aloud, gasp his name, cry it and moan it, sob as you dance around your orgasm.

You really do begin to cry at Sol’s next words. “No, you don’t,” he says, and he’s so sure of himself, that thick-skulled, piss-blooded bastard. “You’re just fucking with me—you’re the one fucking with people’s feelings—no you _don’t_.”

That’s when you find yourself screaming. Not from pleasure, or from frustration, or even from anger—it’s raw and it’s pained, and in that moment all you really want to do is destroy, just— _something_ —because clearly, that is all you are capable of doing—destroying and fucking things up—mainly yourself. _Okay, Sol_ , you think, because you’re just imagining yourself punching him straight in the mouth, watching him scream, raking your claws over his stupid, yellow chest, and _fuck everything_ because the image isn’t even arousing. Your bulge is stilling, retracting, and you’re left only with your murderous thoughts and sexual frustration.

You don’t care that your hands are sticky, don’t care that you’re itching for a fight, for a death—you lower both hands onto the keyboard and there you go, you’re going to just let this whole situation fuck itself. “Do you ever stop to consider that maybe your fuckin’ problem is the fact that you reject everyone who so much as looks your way? You’re not scary, you’re just a dick.”

There is bile in your throat, blood on your lips; your tongue flickers between your teeth and there is the taste of bitterness and salt. Your fingers curl and uncurl compulsively, clutching at your pants, still sitting around your knees. You slowly bring one hand, clenched tight, up to your chest, press your fingers into the empty spaces between your ribs, and push. It doesn’t hurt, even when your claws prick at the skin.

Sol is talking at you, Trollian is flashing. “No, ED, I don’t.” He doesn’t, you know. He’s only rejected you, and he’s about to tell you why. The recognition of your failure settles heavy in your stomach, reaching towards your lungs. “I don’t do that. I reject everyone who thinks they know me better than I do and that they know how to fix me—doesn’t that sound pretty damn familiar. I’m not sorry, but neither are you.” You are. “The only thing scary about you is that you think you can do whatever you want and you’re dumb enough to try. _Stupid_.”

Your breath hitches and a dry sob wracks your body. Your lips are curved upwards. Your next blow hits yourself more than it does Sol—admitting such a major fault to someone who only wants you dead feels as though you’re ripping out a tooth with every word. “It’s pretty funny,” you say, not laughing, “That you think I don’t know that. But you’re over here makin’ yourself seem like a fuckin’ martyr—well, sorry to break it to you, Sol.” You mean to add something else, but you’re left grasping at words, most of which have lost their meaning. You stare at the husktop with a dying mind as another wall of Sol’s text appears.

“Yeah, ED, you’re right, I’m a martyr for putting up with any of this shit tonight—this is the sacrifice of the millennium, damn. Thanks for reminding me that I could have been sleeping or basically doing anything else right now. I just can’t figure out why you think you’ve got anything to hold over my head right now. You’re jus a kid with fins and a harpoon, you’re not making me upset.” There’s a brief pause, and you realize you’ve been holding your breath—your lungs deflate audibly, but you find it difficult to fill them again. “I don’t know if you thought you were, but you’re not. I’m still just laughing.”

You have to stop—stop this—stop Sol—just, _stop_ , because you can’t even keep track of your heartbeat anymore, and you’ve got your jaw clenched so tight to keep the bile from rising. The nausea is all-consuming, and you’re sweating again, all cold and shivery and sick. You’re ending this, you have to.

You lower your hands, plagued with tremors, onto the keyboard, and slowly type your defeat. “Yeah, okay, well I’m glad we got this shit settled. thanks for the feelins jam, Sol, you’ve been a real big fuckin’ help.” Ahab’s Crosshairs is resting quietly in your lap; you spare a moment to caress the barrel, rub the trigger, as Sol takes his time to reply.

“Why do I feel like this won’t been the last of it, either?” Sol says, _whines_. “Are you even conscious right now, will you even remember we had this conversation, ever?”

“Does it matter?” you type, but the hope is trying to push its way back in. “Would you rather I remember this?” You’re cursing yourself before you even press send.

Sol has never been shy about his contempt for you, and he wastes no time showing it here. “I’d rather it never happened at all, fuckfins. Whatever, just log off.”

You move to oblige, ready to claw your own throat out as you do so, but add one final message: “Fuck you, Sol.”

You catch an “Okay, whatever,” before you sign off—and the finality of it is as deafening as the silence in the room. The bile sits thick in your throat, and you turn your eyes towards Ahab’s Crosshairs, stretched across your bare thighs.

You take a moment to consider. You’re not very good at considering, you think, because if you were, you probably wouldn’t fuck up so much—but you want to give Sol a mess to clean up, you want to rub it in his face, you want your blood spread out before him and unable to ignore—you’re above him, you’re privileged, and you always will be, because when it comes down to it, he’ll still be cleaning up after you, bathing his hands in your blood. A lump rises in your throat and you choke.

You slowly stand up, slip out of your pants; Ahab’s Crosshairs is held fast in your hand, and two fingers slip over the trigger. You don’t want to use it, not like this—you don’t want to turn it on yourself. So you calmly walk over to the wall, towards the corner, and sit it along the tiles, and the moment your hand leaves the cool surface, raw emotion surges up into your chest, much like the bile roiling in your stomach and throat. Your hands clench into fists, your eyes water, your lips part, and you move to scream, but all you can do is throw your head back and sob.

Throwing yourself towards your husktop, you fall upon it with your scratching claws; you tear large gashes into the top of it, crack the screen, scream as you do so. Your glasses have fallen off in all of your writhing, and you find them smashed under your knee; shards of glass bite into your skin and you howl because it hurts and because in all of this, you think you deserve it, think Sol would wish this on you, and you believe it in all of the most hideous ways—everything you want, you’ve grown to want it at his hand, and it is his hand that you imagine lodges the broken leg of your glasses into the skin of your stomach. The blood it draws is unimpressive, but a steady stream of “fuck you,” falls from your lips as you scratch at the open wound.

Hatred bubbles up and catches your blood on fire, and you tear yourself from the ground with blood oozing from your scratches, all over your stomach and legs and throat, and slam yourself into the wall like a raging hoofbeast, knocking your horns against the metal as your nose cracks under the pressure. Still pressed against the wall, you ram a fist against it, groaning as your hear two fingers crack, another pop. Your other hand tears into your ribs, across your chest, raising seven angry welts on your skin.

Your head is pounding and your tongue is burning, and every time you move your entire body groans under the weight of your pitifulness. Sinking to the floor, you cradle your broken hand against your chest, leaning your head against the wall, even as your forehead bleeds out against the metal. You’re crying, but you’re not surprised, and you allow yourself to simply slump against the floor, facing the wall, and curl up with your back to the rest of the world.

It is there that you wait for sleep to take you.


End file.
